


On His Head a Crown

by monicawoe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Utopia, Antichrist Sam Winchester, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Chuck Shurley is God, Episode: s05e03 Free to Be You and Me, Episode: s05e04 The End, Gen, M/M, Michael Possessing Dean Winchester, Needles, POV Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Past Real Tyson Brady/Sam Winchester, Post-Apocalypse, Sam Winchester is God, Sam Winchester on Demon Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:07:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22403623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monicawoe/pseuds/monicawoe
Summary: words by monicawoeart by slytherkinsHunters drug Sam, force-feed him demon blood, and bring him to where they’ve captured Brady. Brady tells Sam he knows how to stop the Apocalypse, and Sam, despite his better judgment, hears him out: Sam himself is the horsemen Conquest—aka the Antichrist—and he alone can bring Lucifer’s apocalypse to a grinding halt. Sam resists, but when he discovers the good he can do with his new powers, he decides to use them to atone for all his past mistakes.Dean hasn’t seen Sam since they said their goodbyes in Colorado. He falls asleep in a shitty hotel and wakes up  in a future that looks like paradise, but definitely isn't. Earth is lush and overrun with plant life, but the world’s human population has dwindled considerably. Those who remain seem eerily happy and worship a living god. Confused, Dean heads to Sioux Falls and finds nothing but a crater. Bobby’s grave gives him a set of coordinates that lead Dean to Camp Chitaqua and a small group of nonbelievers—fighters against the new normal, including Castiel, Rufus, Chuck and Risa. Dean tries to piece together what happened during the years he missed and figure out why he's been brought to the future.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Demon Possessing Tyson Brady/Sam Winchester
Comments: 36
Kudos: 80
Collections: Sam Winchester Big Bang 2019-20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2020 SWBB!  
Big thanks to my beta wetsammywinchester <3
> 
> This fic was all based on an idea I put on the back burner years ago. When one of the early trailers for season 5 came out (after 5x01 aired)--the one featuring that gorgeous cover of "Oh, Death," showing Sam in a white suit, with his foot on Dean's throat. At that point, Nick was inhabited by Lucifer, and the way War spoke to Sam about his brothers and how Sam would be knee-deep in corpses and wanted power, I thought for a few minutes that maybe Sam would end up being Conquest. Conquest is often conflated with the Antichrist and is traditionally shown in white with a crown, which goes with the whole boy-king of Hell title so damn well.
> 
> Here’s what that could’ve looked like.

_(August 2009; Garber, Oklahoma )_

“I did it. I started the apocalypse,” Sam said. His confession hung in the air, and Tim smiled at him, grimly satisfied. Lindsey looked at Sam, wide-eyed with fear as Reggie pressed the knife to her throat.

Tim took a step closer, pulling something from his jacket pocket.

“What is that?” Sam asked, staring at the red vial dangling from Tim’s fingers. Even though he knew. He could smell it from where he was, had smelled it on Tim the moment he’d walked into the bar.

“What do you think it is?” Tim asked, humorlessly. “It’s go juice, Sammy boy.”

“Get that away from me.” Sam’s throat felt dry, the veins in his hands pulsed, a sense memory.

“Away from you? No. This is _for_ you.” Tim scoffed. “Hell, if that demon wasn’t right as rain. Down the hatch son.” Tim held the vial out to Sam.

“You’re insane.”

“Look, here’s what’s gonna happen,” Tim said, as Reggie walked Lindsey over to the bar and cuffed her there. “You’re gonna drink this, hulk out, and you’re gonna waste the demon scum that killed my best friend. Or she dies.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Funny how watching your best friend die changes things.” Tim gave Sam another dead-eyed smile. “Come on, you know you want it, Sam.” Reggie and Tim moved together, shoulders squaring for a fight. “Just reach out and take it.”

Sam readied himself and when Reggie lunged, Sam grabbed him and slammed him into the pool table. Tim went straight for Sam’s legs and brought him crashing to the ground, and then Reggie and Tim were both on him. Reggie quickly got Sam in a headlock and pried his mouth open while Tim poured the contents of the vial into Sam’s mouth.

It was torture. Sam felt the tingle of power in the blood coating his tongue, but he wouldn’t give in, he wouldn’t do that to himself again and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to give these two lunatics that satisfaction.

“There. Was that really so bad?” Tim said quietly, nearly a whisper, right by Sam’s ear.

Stilling for a moment, Sam waited until Reggie loosened his hold slightly, then knocked his head back hard against Reggie’s nose, turned and spit the blood at Tim’s face.

Tim recoiled and Sam twisted out of their hold, throwing a hard punch at Tim’s head. He slumped to the floor. Sam ran over to Lindsey, steadily ignoring her tear-streaked eyes and worked on freeing her. His hands were far too shaky to get the cuffs open, but he managed to pull loose the brass rod the cuffs were clipped to and slid the other cuff off. “Go,” he told her.

“Sam...those things they said about you…” She stayed where she was. “I don’t—I don’t know what they were talking about, but you’re a good man.”

“I’m not,” Sam said, and then looking at her, added. “Please go. I’ll take care of them.”

She looked even more upset at the implications of that, but nodded, turned on her heel and hurried out the door.

Reggie was climbing to his feet, and Tim groaned as he came back around. “We got more demon blood,” Reggie said, “a lot more. You know, if you change your mind.”

“I won’t,” Sam’s fists clenched. He weighed his options. He could knock them both out, leave them tied up for the bar's owner to deal with in the morning. But if Reggie and Tim had come after him, and word got out about tonight, the chances of other hunters doing the same to him would skyrocket. He’d have to go way off grid if he wanted to stay out of it. Or he’d have to make a stand.

“You sure?” Tim asked, rubbing at his swelling eye as he came closer. “I mean you fucked us over, left Steve to die, but you wouldn’t do that to an old personal buddy of yours, would you?”

“What?” Sam was so taken aback that he lost focus. Just a split second, but it was long enough. Reggie kicked him hard in the back of the shin, knocking Sam off balance.

“He said he misses you,” Tim snarled, breathing heavy as he wrenched back Sam’s arm, “said you and him go way back.” Something sharp pricked him in the leg and when he whipped his head around he saw Reggie yanking an empty syringe out of Sam’s thigh.

“We’re way past waiting for you to cooperate, Winchester,” Reggie said. “Don’t worry, by the time you wake up, you’ll feel differently about things.”

Sam felt his legs give out and his vision tunneled rapidly. He was— fuck, they’d drugged him—he thought, right before he collapsed and everything went black.

The ceiling above Sam was a good twenty feet away and covered in large patches of water-damaged cheap plaster. Sam blinked, fighting back the rest of the chemical drowsiness; he wasn’t in the bar anymore. This was... a warehouse of some sort. Mostly empty, from what he could see, remnants of wooden pallets and strips of old packing tape littering the cement floor like snakeskins. A single metal chair sat near the wall.

“Nice of you to join us again, Sam,” Tim said, his boot-steps close.

Sam sat up, awkwardly, finding his wrists and ankles bound with rope. His throat was rough and dry and his head was still spinning, equilibrium off-center, and despite his sluggish limbs, his pulse was racing double-time like a bicycle wheel free of its chain. They’d drugged him, but this was something else, not just a sedative but… "What’d you do to me?”

“Gave you what you needed to do your damn job.” Tim held up a blood-spattered plastic tube triumphantly. “Easy to get this into you while you were out. And you know—you made some _noises_ after we fed you too, interesting sounds, not all of them bad.”

Sam swallowed, pain spiking along the jagged tears in his throat left behind by the tube they’d shoved down and yanked back out. He felt ill, violated and angry.

The door in the back swung open and Reggie came through, dragging along a man with a sack over his head. Their captive was possessed. Sam could smell the sulfur stink of demonic power and his mouth watered, hunger followed quickly by the bitter taste of self loathing. The drugs were still in him, but he was burning through them. Quick.

Reggie shoved the possessed man until he stumbled; the sack covering his head was painted in sigils—a devil's trap, and they’d burned his forearm with the binding lock Meg had used on Sam. There was blood staining his shirt, and it hit Sam’s nostrils, snapping him fully awake.

“Exorcism’s too good for this thing,” Tim said. “You’re gonna kill it for us.”

Sam’s heart thumped against his ribs, and his fists clenched, flashes of memories flickering through his mind. The last time he’d used his power he’d killed Lilith, and unleashed Lucifer. But the damage was done: Lucifer was out, the Apocalypse well underway. And, Sam thought bitterly, these idiot hunters had force-fed him who knows how much of this demon’s blood. He might as well use it to take out one more evil.

Reggie shoved the demon down onto the chair and cuffed him there. Normal ordinary handcuffs. Pointless against a demon.

Tim and Reggie together reached down and pulled Sam roughly to his feet, and Sam considered for a moment knocking them both flat, using the rope around his wrists to choke Tim, while he kneed Reggie in the ribcage and took the knife from his thigh holster. But there was a demon in the room; he’d deal with these two later.

“Showtime, Sammy,” Tim said. A switchblade snicked and he cut Sam’s wrist bonds, but not the rope around his ankles, then gave him a shove, sending Sam shuffling a few steps towards the chair.

“Sam?” the demon asked, voice chipper, considering. “That you?”

Gut sinking, Sam took the last two steps and yanked the sack off the demon’s head, just as that voice clicked into place, memories he’d tried so hard to forget rushing back the surface. “Brady?”

“It’s been too long.” Brady grinned at him. “How you been? Do anything exciting since I last saw you?”

Sam’s insides roiled as his brain went into overdrive. “You—you introduced me to Jessica.”

“Sure did. I knew you two would hit it off. Had to dump your ass first, of course, since you didn’t want to hurt my feelings.”

Speechless, Sam stood there, powerless against the onslaught of memories. Brady shouting at him that their nights together hadn’t meant anything, that he’d just been screwing around, that he didn’t want a relationship anyway, but Jessica—

“Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t remember,” Brady licked his lips. “I do. All those long, hard, late-night study sessions.”

“You said—_Brady_ said—“ Sam stopped himself, fighting down the bile threatening to spill up his throat. He’d thought it was Brady who’d pleaded with him, told him he was the only one who could make him feel better, and if it hadn’t even been Brady at the wheel—just this demon, then he’d, then he'd—

Brady’s eyes lit up and he laughed. “Oh don’t torture yourself about it. It was just you and me, even back then. I killed your friend the minute I got inside his meat.”

Sam punched him in the cheek. It made a satisfying cracking sound, forced Brady’s head hard to the side, and when Sam pulled his fist back again he felt his power building, ready to lash out.

But Brady turned to look at him, popped his dislocated jaw back into place, opened his mouth just enough to show fresh blood coating his teeth and said, “That’s it, Sam, let it all out. You were there for me. Now I can be here for you.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

And Sam’d had enough. He reached for Brady with his mind, grabbed hold of the dark churning demon-cloud that had been wearing his college roommate’s body for half a decade, and squeezed.

Brady coughed, eyes widening in shock. But he was stronger than most and forced a few words out despite Sam’s suffocating power. “Wait—before you kill me. Hear me out.”

“Why should I?” Sam tightened his grip.

“Because…” Brady’s voice dissolved into a pained moan before he collected himself enough to keep going, “because I know how to stop Lucifer and his Apocalypse.”

“Yeah? I already fell for that once,” Sam said bitterly. “I’m done listening to demons.” He took a breath, felt his hold loosen ever so slightly, his guilt and shame making his focus waver.

It was a mistake. Brady slipped from his hold, broke through the cuffs like they were made of papier-mâché and thrust out his hand, sending both Tim and Reggie hurtling through the air. They hit the opposite wall hard and slumped to the ground, both unconscious. Reggie’s knife skittered across the floor, landing a few feet from Sam.

Brady lunged at Sam, knocking him easily off-balance and onto the floor, pinning Sam’s waist between his legs. Blood ran down his chin as he gave Sam a toothy grin. “Ruby played you like--well, I’d say like a violin,” he cupped Sam’s chest beneath his hands, “but more like an upright bass maybe." He shifted his grip, brushing his thumbs over Sam’s nipples. “Damn, you filled out nice.”

“Stop it,” Sam snarled, channeling enough power to give Brady a hard shove that sent him flying off of him and into the wall. Sam grabbed Reggie’s knife and used it to slice the rope off his feet, then stood, readying his power for another, deadlier strike.

Brady threw up his hands, in a pleading gesture. “Whoa, just wait a second. You can kill me, okay? Hear me out, and if you don’t like what I have to say, then kill me.”

Sam hesitated. Stupidly. He couldn’t help it. This demon still looked like Brady, who he’d loved, who’d broken his heart.

“Those hunters—they’re gonna kill _you_,” Brady said. “You get that, right? You’re just another monster to them. They just wanted to use you first.”

“I know,” Sam said. “And if they don't, then others will come after me.”

“There’s that big brain I fell in love with.”

“Shut up. That wasn’t you. You were just using me too. To get me to fall into Azazel’s trap, right?”

“Well yeah, but—“

Sam grabbed Brady by the shoulder, locking eyes with him and took hold of him psychically again, a warning pressure. “You gonna get to the point? Because, sorry but—people trying to kill me isn’t exactly a news flash. Tell me about Lucifer, and how to stop him.”

“Sure. Want me to kill these two jackasses first?” Brady asked, nodding his chin towards the hunters.

“No.” Sam let go of him and headed for the door. “Just find their car keys.” He wanted nothing more at that moment than to get out of the warehouse. He couldn’t think clearly here, not with Tim and Reggie and the memories of what they’d done to him still raw in his mind.

Right after they crossed state lines, Sam pulled over at a tin-roof diner, and swapped out their car, taking a white Pontiac firebird in place of the blue Ford truck they’d borrowed from Tim.

“Need food?” Brady asked.

“Not hungry,” Sam said under his breath as they pulled back out onto the highway.

“Well, when you are,” Brady said, rolling back his sleeve. “Snack bar’s right here.”

Sam ignored him, swallowing hard to keep his focus on the road.

To his credit, however dubious, Brady stayed quiet the rest of the way.

Less than an hour later, Sam pulled over at a motel. He had no intention of letting this demon wearing Brady share a room with him, but they needed a place to talk, privately. And he was going to have to sleep eventually.

“So—” the demon started, rubbing his hands together like he was excited to tell Sam his plan.

“Wait. First of all, what's your name?” Sam asked.

“Brady.”

Sam lashed out at him, a psychic slap, a warning. “No, that’s the name of my friend’s corpse that you’re wearing. What’s _your_ name?”

“I—“ he looked genuinely flustered. “I don’t remember.”

“Then pick one.”

“Brady.”

Sam felt his anger flare up anew, hands balling into fists.

“I know you hate me for what I did, and that in all likelihood, I’ve got about five minutes of existence left. As soon as I tell you what I’ve got to tell you, there’s no reason for you not to kill me. So for those five minutes, can I keep being Brady? I know I don’t deserve his name, but it’s the only one I’ve got.”

The rage in Sam deflated, morphing back into that familiar pit of sorrow. What was the point? It wasn’t like anything he did would bring his friend back to life, or Jess, or anyone he’d lost. “Just tell me how to stop Lucifer.”

Brady nodded, sitting down at the small table. He gestured at the other chair, waited for Sam to sit across from him. “You have four other brothers, Sam.”

“What?” It was such a ludicrous statement, for a second, Sam thought the demon was making an ill-timed joke. “What the hell are you—“

“You were born human—well, mostly human—the son of Mary and John Winchester, but you’re also one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“The Horsemen? Like War? Who we just fought last week. Don’t you think he would have mentioned that?”

“You sure he didn’t?” Brady arched his brows. “What did he talk to you about, anyway?”

“None of your business,” Sam said, War’s words echoing in his head: _You want to be strong again. But not just strong. Stronger than everybody._

“Fine.” Brady scoffed. “Different question: Why didn’t War kill you when he had the chance? Why did he talk your ear off instead? Why did he let you and your half-wit brother cut off his fucking finger?”

“He put up a fight,” Sam pointed out.

“He’s a Horseman, Sam, he could’ve called down an army. He could’ve wiped you and Dean off the planet.” Brady looked at Sam expectantly and then his face twitched like he could tell Sam still didn’t get it. “But he didn’t. Because you’re family. War’s family. Because you set them loose, and…”

“And?”

“And because you’re stronger than he is, you just don’t know it yet.”

Sam stood, crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn’t believe Brady. Not just because listening to Ruby before had caused him to inadvertently start the Apocalypse, but also because what Brady was saying was completely insane. If he was a Horseman, he’d know.

Brady, like he knew Sam was waiting on more evidence, kept going, “Your brothers are War, Famine, Death—“

“Pestilence? Are you saying I’m Pestilence?”

“Not Pestilence.” Brady stood, rolling his shoulders back, hands held out by his sides like he was doing an invocation. “And behold, a white horse, and he who rides upon it will conquer all the kingdoms. They shall crown him and every knee shall bend.”

“Conquest,” Sam said, the word heavy on his tongue.

Brady nodded, “He has many names: the Conquerer, the Beast, the Antichrist, the King of This World. He wears a crown upon his head, riding a white steed.” Brady looked out the window, nodding at the car.

“Oh come on, that’s just—we took that car because it was there.”

But Brady’s expression wasn’t the least bit humorous. “Why do you think we needed you, specifically, to raise Lucifer? The Horsemen are a constant, Sam. They always inhabit the world in some way, but now, now is when they ride.”

“You’re talking about possession,” Sam said, lips curling in anger. “I won’t let that happen. Not again.” Sam remembered Meg and how awful it had been losing control over his body, watching as he killed without any way to stop it.

“The Horsemen don’t possess people, Sam, they manifest. You are a manifestation—Conquest in human form. Azazel baptized you with his blood, pledged Hell as your first kingdom, but we didn’t know for sure that it was you. Not until now.” He grabbed Sam’s wrist, cupping his other hand above Sam’s.

Sam pulled back instinctively but hesitated. There was truth to Brady’s insane proclamation, a sense of inevitability. He knew it the way he’d known about being tainted since birth. He’d just never been able to put it to words.

“You died, back in Cold Oak. You died, and Dean made a deal to bring you back, and you were reborn, as your true self. Lucifer’s chosen and his most feared.”

"He's not afraid of me."

"Of course he is. Lucifer made you his perfect vessel. You can hold all of his power and then some. He built you to take down the whole _Host_, Sam. But if you find your power elsewhere, there's nothing any of them can do to stop you."

Sam looked down as Brady withdrew his hands. There was a ring lying in his palm. Bone white, and polished to a gleam.

“This is yours. Whether you want it or not,” Brady said standing. “But it’s also your best—your only—chance of stopping Lucifer, of cleaning up the mess you started.”

Sam eyed the ring like it would unravel and bite him. He didn’t have any reason to trust Brady, and he didn’t, but he also knew that Brady wasn’t lying.For a few long moments, he couldn’t get his voice to work at all. The ring felt like it was pulsing in time with his heart. There were things it wanted to show him, and if he looked, he’d know, he’d understand, and—“I don’t want this,” Sam said, handing the ring back to Brady.

“Okay,” Brady said, slipping the ring in his pants pocket. “But like I said, it’s yours anyway. I was just holding it for you.” His eyes flicked towards the door. “So, are you gonna kill me now, or…”

“Just go,” Sam said, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that was still screaming for Brady’s head, and wanted to sink his teeth into the demon’s neck. He needed time to think. What Brady had told him was too insane, too impossible even for somebody with as twisted a life as Sam’s.

Brady left without fanfare, and Sam was alone.

He took a shower, with the water as cold as he could stand, closing his eyes against the spray, trying to keep his mind empty—an exercise in futility. He had far too much to think about, none of it good, but he tried anyway, fighting against the tide of memories: Tim and Reggie, the tube down his throat, Lindsey’s terrified face, War’s words:_ blood, blood, blood_, and the clogging press of his power; Dean and his distrusting, judgmental eyes and voice, that flat tone after Sam had told him he was done with hunting.

When Sam turned the water off, he didn’t feel any cleaner. Sleep was nowhere on the horizon tonight, he realized grimly, grabbing the threadbare towel he’d scrounged up. He dried himself off, went to hang the towel on the door’s hook and saw the white ring lying on the edge of the sink.

He stared at it a moment, blinked his eyes a few times to make sure it was really there, and then left the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

Sam spent the next few hours alternating between pacing and skimming the internet, trying to take his mind off of the fire in his veins. He could feel the demon blood in him, itching and eager, and found himself looking for demonic omens.He had a few days before withdrawal kicked in, and until then he might as well try to do some good with it.

It didn’t take him long to find signs of demonic activity. A whole host of them. So many in fact, and so extreme he realized it wasn’t a demon at all. It was a horseman—less than a hundred miles from him.

Without giving himself time to change his mind, Sam grabbed the keys to his borrowed car and headed out the door.

Sam listened to local news radio as he drove, picking up more omens along the way, ones that gave him a damn good idea of who he was dealing with. Over the last three days, the populations of Aurora, Boulder and Denver, Colorado had been stricken by disease, new variants of the flu, violent viruses long thought dead, and diseases that per the reporter had never existed before.

When he had to make a pit stop later, at a gas station off the interstate, Sam swapped Tim and Reggie’s car for an ancient yellow Chrysler, not just to keep himself off the radar, but to spite Brady.

He drove on, and the moment he crossed the county line he felt it — a psychic fog in the air, like what he’d felt near War but with undertones of nausea and pain. It got worse the further he drove, his hands stiffening, lungs aching, vision starting to blur, something hot dripping from his nose. Blood. So Sam pulled over, reached into his jacket pocket for a tissue. His fingers brushed against something else instead—the ring he’d left behind in the motel bathroom.

Sam pulled the ring out of his pocket and stared at it dumbfounded. The longer he looked, the more detail he could see. The bone it was made of had carvings in it, tiny lettering that he couldn’t quite read. He squinted, looking more closely, trying to make out what language it was, but like in a dream, the letters evaded him, shifting and changing too quickly for him to follow. The ring pulsed eagerly in his grip, and he could imagine the weight of it on his finger, knew that if he slipped it on he’d understand what it said. He’d remember carving the words into it himself.

Sam slipped the ring in his jeans pocket, still not ready to put it on, but begrudgingly convinced there was no point in trying to get rid of it anymore. He cleaned off his bloody nose and took a steadying, painless breath. Pestilence was still in the air all around him, but Sam was okay. The ring had healed him, or maybe he had healed himself. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he knew he had to keep going. So Sam drove on, honing in on that toxic weight in the atmosphere until he found himself in the parking lot of a hospital.

Cars were parked haphazardly around the entrance to the building itself. Sam passed by an overturned ambulance, the EMTs still inside, one slumped over the steering wheel, the other hanging out the open door on the passenger side, skin grey-green, covered in welts and festering pustules. A fly landed on one of his open, dead eyes.

Fear curdling in his gut, Sam walked through the sliding doors, nostrils immediately assaulted by the stench of decay. His eyes teared up as he headed on, like the air itself was poison. But he didn’t need to see well to know where he was headed. He followed his own internal compass, drawn from one hallway to the next until he found an office marked _Dr. Green_.

The doorknob itched in Sam’s grip and when he pulled his hand back, his palm was covered in red swollen bumps that spread rapidly up his forearm, racing up his biceps with a stinging tingle. He reached instinctively for the ring in his pocket with his other hand, and as soon as his fingers touched it, the bumps disappeared. As quickly as they’d come on.

Freaked out but encouraged, Sam pushed the door open the rest of the way. A thin, beady-eyed man sat at a desk. A woman who looked about two minutes from death lay sprawled on the couch.

“That’s Mrs. Jenkins. She’s had an exciting day.” Dr. Green—Pestilence—smiled, baring teeth. “Haven’t you Doris?” He cocked his head to the side giving Sam a once-over. “You don’t have an appointment.”

“Stop this.”

Pestilence laughed incredulously. “Stop what? My work? I just got started.”

“You’re killing people.”

“Of course I am. Though you know, some would argue that humanity’s the biggest virus of them all.” Pestilence arched an eyebrow. “After I’m done with them, the planet as a whole will thank me.”

“You’re done now,” Sam said, voice only a little unsteady.

Pestilence laughed again, louder this time, his eyes crinkling with amusement. “Says who?”

Sam took a step towards him. “Me.”

He narrowed his eyes, looking at Sam steadily. “No.” He stood, amusement gone, anger building in his voice, “No, you—you’re not supposed to be here. You said you didn’t want it.”

“Want what?” Sam asked, but the Horseman hadn’t heard him or didn’t care to answer him.

“It’s our time, not yours.” Pestilence turned his ring, inlaid with a pale green stone, taking a step closer to Sam. There were things rippling under his skin, squirming through his veins. Small green tendrils at the corners of his eyes that oozed liquid down his cheeks and launched themselves into the air—evaporating into gas, becoming airborne contaminants, headed straight for Sam.

Sam’s body flinched at the onslaught of disease, hundreds of different strains, all of them digging into him, eating at his guts, his blood, his brain. But they dissipated just as quickly, leaving behind a chill running up his spine. He understood then: he was immune to Pestilence. Maybe to all of the Horsemen. Sam held up his hands, calming or threatening, he wasn’t sure, but Pestilence stumbled back, stammering, “No, please—don’t.”

Pestilence jerked violently, almost like he was going through what Sam had been experiencing moments earlier, only much, much worse. “Stop,” he pleaded, as his knees gave out and he fell to the floor. He convulsed, back arching, head slamming against the floor and then went still, blood-speckled foam leaking from his mouth, green oozing from his nose and ears. His eyes were frozen open

Sam crouched down and slid the ring off Pestilence’s finger. It felt warm and fleshy in his palm, like a wriggling larva. He slid it into his pocket and stood, watching curiously as the Horseman’s body went rigid and colorless like he’d turned to wax.

Heart thudding in his chest, Sam turned to leave the room.

“Help me, please,” the woman on the couch—Doris—said, voice a grating whisper. She was sitting up, but her skin still looked grey and the angry red pustules on her face weren’t fading.

“I—I don’t know if I can,” Sam said. They were in a hospital, but whether or not any of the doctors here were even still alive was doubtful.

“Then kill me. Please, it hurts so much.”

Sam went down on his knees next to her and took her hand. “No. You’re not dying.”

“Oh,” she said, softly, eyes going wide. Her arm began to glow, a soft white light traveling up towards her shoulder, up the veins of her neck and when that light reached her head, the color returned to her cheeks, and the sores vanished, fading away into nothingness.

Sam let go of her, stunned, wondering if this was a side effect of killing Pestilence. Would all his evil be undone now that he was gone?

“You healed me. You— ” She stood and ran her hands over her arms and then threw them around Sam in a desperate, relieved hug. “Thank you. You saved my life.”

Sam pulled back and shook his head, but found he wasn’t sure himself. “You’re welcome,” he said finally, voice cracking. He extricated himself from her hold and stood. The rings in his pocket were hot, he could feel the warmth from them, felt them moving, so he reached inside and pulled them out to find them joined, looped over each other, and as he watched, the white bone of his ring—of Conquest’s ring—grew wider, swelling and expanding, curling over Pestilence’s metal and shimmering green jewel. The script written on its side was larger now and Sam could just make out one of the words. It was written in a script Sam couldn’t pinpoint, but he knew innately that the word meant, “Heal.”

The bone felt cool to the touch as Sam held it in the palm of his hand, traced his fingertips over it, sensing the other words there. He couldn’t understand them all yet, but he would. Soon.

“Help me, somebody help me please!” a man called out, pulling Sam from his reverie. Slipping the ring in the breast pocket of his shirt, Sam jogged towards the voice and found a man standing bedside next to a boy of no more than ten on life support. A nurse had died on the floor right in the middle of the room. “Can you help him?” the father asked.

Sam looked at the boy on the cot, felt the pulsing of the ring in his pocket, right against his heart, and cupped his hand over the boy’s forehead. A soft glow poured from Sam’s fingers down the boy’s head and neck, spreading out to his limbs, and the machines attached to him all began to beep frantically, then short-circuited, one by one. The boy sat up, coughed, and his father helped him pull the breathing tube from his throat.

“David?” the father asked, and the boy threw his arms around him, crying.

Sam, felt himself tearing up and stared, dumbfounded at his hand.

“Dad," David said, sniffling, "Dad, I’m fine.” He sat up and looked at Sam. “Are you my doctor?”

Sam shook his head.

“He saved you,” David’s father said. Turning to Sam he added, “I don’t know what you did, or who you are, but thank you. Thank _God_ for you.”

Speechless, Sam stood and turned to leave the room. He headed towards the exit, but stopped when he heard a ragged cough, coming from another room.

Sam’s fingers trembled as he pulled out his phone, not with fear but exhilaration. His whole body sang with what he’d done, with what he knew he could still do.

“Sam?” Dean sounded groggy, like he’d been sleeping.

“Dean I—listen, I want back in.”

“Why the change of heart? Did you figure your shit out already?”

“Not exactly—“

“It’s been what, two weeks?”

“Three.” Sam took a breath, not exactly sure how to explain it to Dean.

“Why now?”

“Something happened. These hunters came after me, and—“

“So this is about revenge?”

“Not revenge. Redemption.” Sam’s heart raced in his chest; he felt like he was on the witness stand defending himself. “Look, I know this isn’t going to make a lot of sense, but I can help people. I can _save_ people.”

“Yeah? Like you used to?” Dean’s voice held more than a touch of suspicion.

“No, it’s—it’s complicated.”

“How are you saving people?”

“I can heal them.” He pulled the ring from his pocket, focused on the soothing pulse of the bone.

“How?”

Sam chewed on his lip. _Because apparently I’m a Horseman of the Apocalypse_ wasn’t going to go over well. But he didn’t have a better explanation, either. “I can’t really explain it, but I can do this—just let me show you. Let me prove it to you.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m sorry, man, but you were right. We need to stay away from each other. We’re not stronger when we’re together, we’re weaker.”

“That’s not true,” Sam was pleading, desperate. He needed Dean to give him another chance. Just one.

“It is, and you know it is.”

“Why? Because I’m a liability?”

Dean’s biting silence was an answer in itself. “Sammy…I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sam said. He hung up, frustrated tears stinging his eyes. Dean still didn’t trust him. Maybe he never would again. And why should he? Sam stared at his phone for a beat; he pulled up his contacts, looked at Bobby’s name, couldn’t stomach the thought of being rejected by him too. But there, right below Bobby was a new entry, one Sam knew he hadn’t added himself. Sam took a slow breath out and dialed the number.

Brady picked up the phone on the fourth ring, answering with, “And?”

“I need to talk to you,” Sam said.

“One more dead Horseman, and three whole hospitals full of healed people, huh?” Brady said. “Well, hallelujah. Not bad for a day’s work.”

Sam picked at the label on his beer. “The third one was two states over. Pestilence hadn’t gotten to them yet.”

“Your power isn’t contingent on them, Sam. You’re their antithesis. He plagues, you heal. War is violence, you’re peace. Famine is hunger unsated, you’re bliss. And Death has no dominion over you.”

“I can save people,” Sam said, a warm thrill running through him.

“As many as you want.”

“And I can stop Lucifer?”

“If you take your crown? Absolutely.”

Sam nodded and took his ring out of his pocket. This wasn’t like Ruby and the demon blood. He’d fallen then, felt it with every drop of sulfur-tinged red. He’d had the power to pull demons out of people, but that was nothing compared to this. He could help _everyone_ now.

The ring still felt cool to his touch. A soft prickle of electricity tickled his skin as he slid it onto his ring finger, over his knuckles. It settled into place and Sam’s mind flooded with memories:

_Famine’s dying gasps, War’s smug familiarity, Dean’s doubt; an indomitable power reaching down and plucking Sam out of the chapel, moving him and Dean like chess pawns. Lucifer’s light bursting through the circle of blood. Blood from demons with black eyes, white and yellow, Lilith, Alastair, Azazel—drops of his blood, the sweet well of Ruby’s, the portals to Hell Sam opened and closed as easily as if he held the key; a shattering scythe, a white blaze of all-encompassing heat, metal biting into skin over and over, blood-slicked feathers beneath his fingers, cool rich earth, dew-laden grass, green as far as the eye could see, living vines spreading throughout the world, an eternal sky, blue and pristine, a house made of windows, a dying mountain, a sea of voices praying, their chanting humming through his bones._

Breathless, Sam came back to the present and found Brady watching him, with unabashed eagerness. “Knew you’d come around.” He fell to his knees in front of Sam, arms lifted in invocation: “And on his head is placed a crown, and he shall conquer all the kingdoms.”

Sam turned to look at his reflection in the window and saw it: a crown of silver and white. It faded after a few moments, but he could still feel it there, hovering a dimensional half-step away. The possible futures unfolded in his mind, a thousand roads that ended in pain and blood and fire and one, just one of light and peace, of joy and love, of life unfettered. He stepped forward, bringing that road into focus, and the ring on his hand expanded, becoming wider, lifting off and up until it floated above his head like a halo. Sam felt the crown settle on him, the gleaming bone piercing into his skull like thorns. It hurt less than it should have, the pain insignificant compared to the flood of power, serene and absolute, that accompanied it. Blood trickled down his forehead, a drop running down his cheek. He brought his hand up and almost absently, wiped at it with his thumb.

Brady, still kneeling, looked up at Sam expectantly, with reverence, and Sam pressed his blood-covered thumb to Brady’s forehead, anointing him.

_(Kansas City; August 2009)_

Exhausted after all the shit with Raphael, Dean headed for the closest hotel. There was a sidewalk preacher hovering nearby that made a beeline for Dean, shoving a flyer at his face. "My friend, have you heard the good word?"

"Not interested."

"He's coming!" The man's pupils were blown wide with the kind of rabid excitement typical of junkies on a high. But Dean knew better, this was all natural devout fervor. "Paradise is coming!"

"That's nice," Dean said, shouldering past him. He was tired, and the last thing he needed right now was a religious fanatic talking his ear off. Paradise was a lie. The whole damn thing was a lie.

Dean got a room key with minimal exchange of words, the clerk grunting at him as he pointed towards the sign: _payment upfront._ Whatever. Dean slapped two twenties on the counter and headed upstairs.

The room was about as ragged as he expected, but the threadbare sheets on the bed looked mostly clean. He stripped out of his jacket and boots and fell into bed, exhausted.

Sam called him in the middle of the night. Dean kept his resolve, and it only doubled when Sam told him he could save people. He was lying about something, or at least not telling Dean everything, that much was obvious. He had to have faith in Sam again before they reconnected. And right now, his faith was so low it was buried underground.

Dean shut off his phone, set it to silent, flipped off the light, and turned his face into the musty pillow, wishing the world away.

_(Kansas City; August 2014)_

Dean woke to the sound of birds. Not pigeons, but birds, singing a melody he'd heard before, maybe at a zoo or on a nature documentary, something light and trilly, something definitely not local to Kansas City. Still exhausted, Dean struggled to lift his eyelids, turning away from the light pouring in through the window. Something tickled his nose, fragrant and soft. He opened his eyes, still groggy, and found his face pressed against a flower. Flowers were covering his bed; whole vines of them had grown overnight. He sat up, confused, and more than a little alarmed, and saw that the vines had grown right over his legs, trailing up three of the four walls in the room. Thornless, not roses but something similar, heavy with perfume and a dizzying array of colors: yellow and red and white.

And there on his windowsill, making that trilling sound he'd heard, was a peacock—a white peacock. It tilted its head as if wondering what Dean was doing there and hopped inside.

"Make yourself at home," Dean said, even more disoriented. He yanked his legs free of the vines, and stood, searching the floor for his boots, which he eventually found, buried beneath another cluster of flowers. He turned them upside down, dumping out the petals and pollen and flinched when a bee shot past his cheek. "What the hell?" he muttered. He needed coffee, or a drink, maybe an Irish coffee. Something to help him figure out what had happened to the world overnight.

The window didn’t give him much of a view, tree branches crowding the glass so thoroughly he could barely see much of anything. This part of Kansas City wasn’t exactly known for its trees, and he was sure there hadn’t been one anywhere on this block when he’d fallen asleep last night.

Slipping into his boots, Dean headed out into the hall. The walls of the small hotel were covered with vines and flowers, just like his room; some of the doors were completely sealed off by the overgrowth, but the stairs had been cleared. It was eerily quiet as he headed down, alone in a forest quiet, like maybe only his room had been occupied.

The front door to the hotel opened with a creak, and he stepped outside into a sea of color. The sidewalk was gone, grass and wildflowers stretching in every direction, and massive trees of every shape and kind sprouted through the ground; some of the trunks were still covered in asphalt at the base; they’d erupted right through the street.

“How long was I asleep?” Dean mumbled to himself.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” a voice asked.

Dean whipped around and saw a woman—blonde curls, thirties, wearing hippie clothes—a loose-hanging shirt that looked like it was made of hemp over jeans with a handmade cloth bag slung over her shoulder. She was barefoot and smiling warmly. “He’s real happy today.”

“Who’s happy?” Dean stopped himself, threw her a smile. “Hi, I’m Dean. You are?”

“Hi, Dean. I’m Lindsey. Prayer beads?” she asked, reaching into her bag. She pulled out a necklace of beads.

“No thanks.”

“You’ll need them.” Lindsey put the beads in his hand, curling his fingers gently shut around them. There was a crown dangling off the end. “It’s almost time.”

“I don’t pray.”

She laughed at that, soft and warm. “Everybody prays. You don’t want to make him sad, do you?” Her eyes went glassy, smile fading rapidly, like just the thought of it was making her sad.

“Make _who_ sad?”

A church bell rang, somewhere in the distance.

“It’s time. Come on,” she said and hurried away, towards the sound.

“Wait! Wait a minute,” Dean said, following her. But she wove in between the trees easily, disappearing from view when Dean had to duck to get under one of the lower branches.

He kept on, heading towards the sound of bells until he found himself in a clearing with a church. The church was simple, white-painted cement, not much taller than the rest of the buildings in what had been a strip mall once upon a time. It didn’t even have a bell tower. The ringing, as it turned out, was coming from a large flat-screen television, mounted to the outside of the small tower, flanked by speakers. There were thick green vines wrapped around the edges of the television, almost like they were holding it in place, framing the corners of the screen with ivy. An image of a large bell swung back and forth three more times and then stopped, the image replaced by a preacher with over-white teeth and the kind of corporate banker face that made Dean cringe instantly.

“Friends,” said the preacher, “join me in morning prayer.”

Lindsey stood looking up at the television, holding her own set of prayer beads in her hands and chanted, along with the preacher: _“Savior, Almighty Majesty…”_

There were other voices, from all around Dean, and he saw dozens of others, spread out around him, all of them with rapt attention, eyes facing the screen as they prayed, moving the beads one at a time.

“We _worship_ you.”

“_In_ your _name_, we _cherish_, we _hope_.”

The man to Dean’s left fell to his knees, still praying, pupils shrunk to pinpoints. “_Exalted_ one, we _serve_ you, _today_, tomorrow and forever.” The man brought the crown dangling from his beads up to his lips and kissed it. On the last word, he brought the crown up and pressed it to his forehead. He made a soft sound, a quick inhale of breath, and when he brought his hands back down, he was bleeding. There was a needle sticking out of the crown. Dean pulled out the beads Lindsey had given him and saw it there, barely the length of a pushpin, just short enough to miss, but sharp.

He turned and saw that everyone around him had fallen to their knees, and every single one of them was bleeding.

“_Eternally_ shall you _rule_.” They all said in unison, which was downright creepy. But not half as creepy as the blood from each of their foreheads dripping down to the ground, just one drop each, but at unnatural angles, defying gravity like the earth itself was siphoning it down.

“The day is yours,” the preacher said from above, “enjoy his gifts to you.” The television went dark save for a symbol in the center of the screen. A crown with something like a vertical infinity sign behind it. Or maybe an eight.

Dean walked slowly closer to Lindsey and saw as the small red dot of a wound in her forehead vanished. No hole left, no needle mark. Her pupils dilated, going from pinpricks back to normal and she stood, smiling at him like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Have a good day!” she said, with a wave, and walked off, humming to herself.

The other townspeople or whatever they were stood and wandered off, back to wherever they’d come from. And as they did, the remnants of Main Street rippled, grass and flowers pushing their way forcefully out of the crumbling gravel and tar. The tree next to the hardware store was growing like in time-lapse, branches stretching just a little further, new twigs sprouting right before Dean’s eyes. The soft pink blossoms grew and shrunk, leaving ripened cherries in their wake. Dean reached out, picked one and popped it in his mouth. The taste exploded across his tongue, sweet as pie, and the smell was all around him, so intoxicating it took him a few more seconds of working the last of the flesh off the pit to wonder if maybe he shouldn’t have eaten it.

He spit the pit onto the ground and stumbled back a step when it immediately sprouted, growing into a sapling before his eyes.

“Well, that was friggin’ weird,” Dean said under his breath. He eyed the television warily, wondering if there’d been a subliminal message encoded in it. If so, it hadn’t affected him. Luckily. Also, subliminal messages didn’t usual affect plants along with people. He scanned his surroundings, and squinted, then jogged a bit closer to be sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing—a section of actual street, not that far off.

The verdant green of the city tapered off at its outskirts, smaller, younger trees dwindling down to saplings by the time he reached the highway. There were cars clustered around the edge, parked off the side of the road, like a makeshift parking lot. Maybe they belonged to the cultists.

He found an old Jeep in decent condition with its window rolled down, popped open the door and set to hot-wiring it.

It’s not that he was out of practice, but he was having trouble getting a good angle, neck craned to make sure he had the red and blue wires lined up.

“Hey, are you stealing my car?”

Dean banged his head against the steering wheel as he sat up. There was a guy looking down at him curiously, in his forties maybe, shaved head, wearing an oversized hoodie.

“Uh, no I’m—borrowing it,” Dean said, reaching for the fake badge he kept in his pocket. “Federal Agent.”

“Go ahead, here's the key,” the guy said, handing Dean his car keys.

“Huh?” Dean stared at him.

“The king says we should give what we have to those in need. You seem to need it.”

"Ohhkay. Thanks. Uh. I mean. Thank you for your cooperation. I'll bring it back when I'm done.”

"Don't bother. I'm not going anywhere." He smiled and waved at Dean as he headed towards the lush green oasis.

Dean sat in the Jeep speechless for a few more seconds before sticking the key in the ignition. "Okay, then.”

The Jeep turned out to be a good choice. Dean’s drive to South Dakota involved significantly more off-roading than he’d expected. The overgrowth he’d seen in Kansas City wasn’t an isolated thing. Whole stretches of highways were unusable, ravaged by thick thorny vines and trees. A copse of firs had sprouted right at the on-ramp to the interstate, but Dean squeezed by anyway, brute-forcing his way through, pine needles scraping against the Jeep’s door and roof.

A few miles later he swerved, narrowly avoiding a coyote feeding on roadkill. And less than an hour after that he had to brake for an entire herd of cows, walking across the highway like they had all the time in the world. Most of the gas stations he remembered were gone—abandoned, or buried under vines; one of them had been taken over by a family of bears.

Random animals aside, Dean was alone on the road no matter where he went. It was upsetting if he let himself think about it too much, so he didn’t. Every few dozen miles he’d pass another town turned into a makeshift forest, and at the intersection of Interstate 29 and 90, a redwood was growing straight out of the middle of the highway. It was massive, like it had been there for hundreds of years.

Dean drove around the base of the tree, tires rolling up and down the oversized roots. The road evened out again eventually but was bumpy for a long stretch thereafter. He picked up the pace when he got on the road leading to Sioux Falls, to Bobby's. Even if it'd be awkward explaining the whole time travel thing—because that’s what this had to be, there was no other explanation—Bobby would help him. He'd at least be able to explain what the fuck was going on, and—

"No."

Dean slammed on the breaks and got out of the car in a stupor, clutching at his head. "No, no, no..."

Singer Salvage was gone. Not abandoned or overgrown—there was a crater where the scrapyard should've been—big enough that it looked like a meteor had hit. It had taken out the whole yard and miles around it. Dean walked to the edge of the crater and stumble-slid down into it, scuffing his hands and knees along the way. The earth inside was dust and ash, little bits of metal mixed in like glitter.

Heart stuck in his throat, Dean walked towards the center of the pit where something was sticking out of the ground. A cross—small, wooden and unremarkable. Bobby's name was written on it in sharpie along with numbers: a set of coordinates.

Fuel was getting low. The Jeep ran on empty for a good twenty miles before finally giving out. But Dean was nearly there. The coordinates he'd found at Bobby's grave were close now, only a few more miles away. He could make it by foot, easy. So he searched the car for anything useful and realized with a sinking feeling, that he didn’t have a weapon on him. Chastising himself for not realizing it until now, he opened the door and got out.

From the look of things, the road was nice and normal from here on out. He’d passed the last sporadic burst of plant life a few miles back, and up to the horizon, all he could see was grey sky above a flat road framed by dusty ground with dry grass. It looked a lot like Sioux Falls had, minus the crater. It was hot though, warmer than it should be, considering it looked like fall bordering on winter.

He wiped at his brow as he walked, shrugged out of his jacket and tied it around his waist. There was someone else up ahead. Dean stopped, trying to get a better look and realized they were running at him. Full speed. And they were holding something. A weapon maybe? “Shit,” Dean hissed, still annoyed that he was unarmed. He considered his options which ranged from bad to crappy. He could dodge off onto the side of the road where there was nothing he could use to defend himself, or stay on the road, where there was also nothing. If he ran, he could get back to the car, and climb inside, which could maybe work except there was nothing in there either and it wouldn’t move.

“Fuck it,” he muttered and stayed where he was, squaring his shoulders. The running man was less than twenty feet away now, big, pissed off, and holding a two by four. He screamed when he got close and brought the wood up above his head before swinging it in a wide arc at Dean. Dean rolled out of the way and heard a wet popping sound like a burst water balloon followed by the clatter of wood. Something rained down on him, heavy and wet. _Fleshy_. Blood and...the insides of his would-be attacker who’d apparently exploded. The two by four lay in front of him, broken in half and blood-splattered.

“What the hell?” Dean pushed himself to his feet, frantically brushing the bits of bone and who knows what else out of his hair. The sloppy pile of meat and organs on the street shifted as the intestines twitched one last time, chunks of spinal cord rolling down the sides of the heap like jagged pebbles. “Seriously, what the hell!” Dean shouted, at nobody in particular.

There was somebody else coming at him, and Dean got back into a fighting stance before he recognized the gait. The clothes were different, but he knew who it was coming towards him.

“Cas?”

Castiel jogged the last few steps and stood there looking Dean up and down, panting, catching his breath. “It’s you.” He smiled, crooked and tired. His hair was longer and he'd grown a beard of sorts. “But a different you. You’re not from here, not from now.”

“Cas—some dude just tried to whack me with a piece of lumber.”

“Oh. That was Peter.”

“Why did Peter run at me with a two by four and then explode?”

Castiel paused for a few seconds before answering, “He ran at you because he thought you weren’t you, and he exploded because he’s outside the perimeter.”

“Perimeter?”

“Seven-mile radius. Well…” Castiel turned his head side to side. “I guess it’s more like six now. It’s been shrinking.”

“That explains nothing.”

“It’s complicated.” He walked closer, frowning. You have a bit of uh…” he wiped at his cheek, prompting Dean to do the same. "Liver I think. Or maybe spleen."

“Cas, seriously. What’s going on?"

Castiel let out a dry huff. “Let’s get back to camp. It’s safer there. Marginally.”

"Sure." Dean scanned the empty land around them. "How far?"

"Just under two miles."

Dean bit back a groan of protest. "Any chance you can zap us there?"

Castiel laughed, hard and disbelieving like it was the funniest thing he'd heard in years. He laughed to the point where it started making Dean uncomfortable and then worried. "No, I can't um...just zap us there, Dean. I haven't been able to do that in years." He turned on his heel and started walking away, leaving Dean no choice but to follow him.

"Why not?"

"He gets stronger, we get weaker," Castiel said, like that explained everything.

“Twenty-fourteen?” Dean repeated in disbelief. “I’m five years in the future?”

“Yup,” Castiel said. "Any idea who sent you?"

"No clue."

“How’d you find us?” Chuck asked. The prophet looked crappy. He was sick apparently, propped up on a couch and bundled in blankets.

"He went to Bobby's," Rufus said, handing Dean a scotch. "That’s why you’re here, right? You found the coordinates.”

Dean took the drink gratefully, drank deep before answering with a nod.“What happened to him? To Sioux Falls?” Dean asked.

"Angels," said a woman—Risa, Dean remembered Cas had called her. "One of the last big showdowns."

"They're the ones who did all this? The—the random forests, the hippie cult?"

Rufus snorted. "Hippie cult."

Castiel cleared his throat. "Michael and Lucifer fought. The craters and a great deal of the other damage was from them."

"Great deal of damage," Rufus said, bitterly. "He means millions of people. Worldwide. Dead just from being caught in the crossfire. The 'hippie cult' came after," he said, grabbing the bottle of Scotch. He refilled his own glass, offered some to Chuck, who declined and then refilled Dean's. "After the angel war."

"Angel war's over?" Dean took another drink as a horrifying realization set in. If he was meant to be Michael's vessel then Sam had to be Lucifer's. Had Sam said yes? "Who won?"

"Nobody," Castiel said, grimly.

"What, they wiped each other out?" Dean asked.

"What he means," Rufus said, "is that the _angels_ lost. The king won."

Chuck burst into a coughing fit. Risa handed him a canteen. He drank deep and settled against the pillow again.

"What's wrong with him?" Dean asked.

"Mono, we think," Risa said. "He's been getting worse, and we've only got so much medicine here."

Dean swallowed. The back of his mind was reeling with questions. Who had Michael and Lucifer been wearing when they bought it? If he wasn't here, then it seemed likely he'd gotten caught in the crossfire too, and if that was the case, then Sam had to have been involved. But he couldn't bring himself to ask just yet. "So this king is some kind of a god?"

“Yeah, pretty much,” Castiel said with another sad smile.

Dean felt a little like punching his teeth in. Where was his anger? "And what about your God?Why isn’t he doing anything?"

"Maybe he’s out of ideas," Chuck said.

Dean scoffed. "Or maybe he’s a lazy asshole who likes to watch but never wants to help."

“The conflict’s the thing though,” Chuck said. “A world without it isn’t much of anything.”

Cas laughed bitterly. “Ask any soldier if they agree with you. Maybe they'd tell you that this is better. The world is better.”

“But it’s —it’s empty, right?" Dean asked, "The population's been what—_halved_?”

"Try quartered, and quartered and quartered again," Rufus said.

“Two thousand fifty-eight people left in the state, last time we got numbers,” Risa said.

"And all of that's because of the angel war?”

"Most of it," Castiel nodded and took a heavy breath. “The last battle between Michael and Lucifer was catastrophic.”

“How'd it end?”

Castiel fell quiet again.

“Michael ended it,” Chuck said. “Michael won.”

“So wait—did I—the me from this time—did I say yes to Michael?" Dean asked, heart lurching. His thoughts came more panicked."Is Lucifer dead?” Saying it out loud felt far more unsettling than Dean thought it would. This whole conversation he'd been wondering if the real reason he was here was to stop Sam from saying yes to Lucifer, but if Lucifer was dead, and Sam had said yes already, then— “And Sam?”

Castiel opened his mouth, like he was going to say something but thought better of it.

“Cas, is he dead?” Dean grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt, shook him. “Is Sam dead?”

"I don't know." Cas said, eyes glassy. "I honestly don't know."

Dean sat in front of the camp's main cabin, staring out at the dusty grounds. It was an old summer campground site, that they'd repurposed as a base. They had two cars, which according to Cas were used for supply runs whenever they could scrounge some gas together. The Impala sat next to a small truck and the Jeep that Dean had driven here. There had been two dozen people here, once upon a time, but one by one they'd been picked off, some of them joining the king's cult, the others succumbing to violent impulses. And then exploding. So now it was just the five of them: Risa, Rufus, Castiel, Chuck and apparently, until recently, Dean.

Rufus joined him outside after a few minutes and sat in the chair next to Dean's.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, Rufus still nursing the last of his drink. "Bobby knew."

Dean looked at him. "Bobby knew what?"

"He knew the angels were headed his way. I was on my way there, had just finished a hunt near Minneapolis. I called him, to give him a heads up, and he told me not to come. Said he had stuff going on, but I could tell he was lyin'."

"Why didn't he leave?"

"Have you met the guy?" Rufus chuckled. "Have an easier time convincing a dog to leave a steak. He probably thought he could talk sense into those flying assholes, or something."

Dean stared at the warped wood of the porch floorboards, steadfastly holding back the stinging in his eyes.

"Got something for you," Rufus said, standing. "Back in a minute." He opened the door, stepped into the house, came back out seconds later carrying a stack of newspapers, and set them on the floor next to Dean's feet. The one on top was dated May 2nd, 2013, and the headline read:_ One Year of World Peace._

Dean picked it up and started reading. _Today marks one year under the rule of our King. Today we commemorate Him, and honor Him and speak not of the past when we were lost. _Dean could barely stomach the rest of it, skimming down to the section below where they'd listed a _Timeline of Events (reverse chronological order). _

_January 24th, 2013 All remaining members of the United Nations pledge fealty to the King._

_May 2nd, 2012 The peace declaration. Weapons are rendered nonfunctional at daybreak._

_September 8th, 2011 The end of the celestial war. All non-terrestrial threats are eliminated._

Dean read on, eyes widening at each detail. The world had just rolled over for this King. He turned the page, found a handful of sports listings and a weather forecast that made zero sense.

"Few other things I was wondering about," Dean said, setting the paper back down on his lap as he turned to Rufus. "No cell signal, no internet?"

"Oh, there’s signals. In some places. And internet. But he controls it."

"So what, it's all propaganda?"

"Not all of it, there's plenty of other crap. Internet's still ninety percent porn."

"Well, that's' a bright spot at least."

Rufus laughed. "We still got television too, just the one shitty channel though."

"The preacher?"

"Yup. Brady.” Rufus said with a grimace. “The king's messenger."

"Brady?" The name sounded familiar, though Dean couldn't place it.

Dean held up the newspaper in his lap. "And all this is real? Everybody just gave up?"

Rufus shrugged. "They left out some of the finer points. People didn't know all the shit blowing up was because of angels. A lot of them thought it was aliens or a nuclear world war nobody was taking the blame for. But after the dust settled, the papers agreed on _celestials_ and stuck with it. Fits as well as anything else, I suppose." He glanced down at the remaining stack of newspapers. "There's more in there, but if you want a quick rundown, we've got a videotape upstairs."

"Video? As in VCR?"

"Yup. One of the few things the king can't seem to touch. Maybe it’s too low tech.” Rufus chuckled into his glass, finishing off the last of the scotch.

A videotape. They’d been outdated in 2009, the fact that they still had a functional VCR in 2014 said something about the state of the world, though Dean didn’t quite know what. “Where’s the VCR?”

“Upstairs.” Rufus arched an eyebrow. “In your room.”

Dean stood but paused by the door. “Rufus, did I say yes to Michael?”

“What do you think?” Rufus asked.

“No way I'd say yes to those douches. Not unless I didn't have another choice."

“Yeah, choices. There's the rub, right? What happens when you run out of choices? What do you do—what do you _Winchesters_ always do when it's your brother's soul on the line?”

The lump in Dean’s throat grew bigger. “What we have to.”

Rufus nodded to himself and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes.

Dean's room was in the back corner of the top floor. He recognized it as his easily enough—his old duffel bag was on the floor, and his favorite jacket hung on the doorknob of a closet along with an empty gun holster. There wasn't much else in the room—a desk, a map pinned to the wall with circles in red and black and Dean's blocky handwriting on post-its. He tried to make sense of it for a few minutes, figuring out pretty quickly that the concentric circles of red corresponded with the forest growths. The largest of the circle groups was in Wyoming, stretching across the entirety of the state and then some. At its center was an X, right near Laramie Peak.

An ancient television sat on a squat bookcase that held a whole collection of videotapes and the VCR.

Dean sat on the floor in front of it and reached for the tape labeled "Daybreak." He pushed at the VCR's slot with his fingertip to make sure it was empty and slid the tape inside.

The tape was worn. It had been watched over and over. He'd done it himself to some of his favorite movies back in the day. The first image stuttered and settled on a news anchor, saying, _"This video was sent to us by a viewer who witnessed last night's event in Wyoming."_

The video cut to outside footage—a highway, nighttime. There was smoke somewhere nearby, and fire in the distance.

"—hear me?" a voice asked.

Even without seeing him clearly, Dean knew. Knew the voice better than any other, could feel it in his bones.

“Are you listening?” Sam asked as the camera focused on him. He was standing in the middle of a smoldering street, face smudged with dirt, hair covered in ash, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. The video image nodded along with whoever was recording it. “Good," he said with a smile, squaring his shoulders. The camera shook and whoever was filming stumbled back a bit, the angle tilting as the street cracked open, thick branches bursting out of the earth beneath Sam. He stepped onto one of the thickest branches, and it grew larger and wider, raising him up into the air as the tree grew taller. It became a fully grown oak, thick with leaves except for where Sam stood, like the buds knew better than to block his view. He tilted his head down to look at the camera and there was a weird refraction of light around his head, shaped like a thorny halo, or a crown. "The sun sets tonight on a world of violence and bloodshed, but it rises tomorrow on a new day, one where there will be no violence, no war, no sickness, no more senseless death. After daybreak, all you will know is paradise everlasting.” The image on the screen warped, flickering and wavering in a way Dean knew had just as much to do with power as time. Sam’s eyes, what he could see of them, glowed star-bright in the darkness, light spilling out of them in waves until the whole screen went white. “Believe in me and know peace.”

Dean unclenched his fist, skin throbbing where he’d pushed his nails into the flesh of his palm, leaving angry red half-moons behind. “Lucifer,” he said, "Damn it, Sam, what did you do?"

The clip ended with the news anchor, looking visibly shaken. He read on: “_Reports coming in from all over the globe that weapons have stopped functioning or have simply vanished. A man attacked his neighbor with a kitchen knife and the knife, quote, melted in his hand and he exploded, unquote." _The footage switched to a roomful of military men shaking hands. _"Ceasefires are being declared around the world—these involuntary ceasefires as they’re being called are the result of military planes, aircraft carriers, and tanks all becoming nonfunctional overnight, whole stores of nuclear weapons simply gone, entire armories melted away." _The video cut off, switching to a different segment, dated a few weeks later.

“No more war, that’s what he said, right?” the woman being interviewed was young, in her twenties, with green-blue hair and piercings in her eyebrow. “So now there’s no more war. We can’t hurt each other anymore. Because he won’t let us.”

“You’re not scared?” the interviewer asked.

“No, why would anybody be scared? He’s watching over us. He’s not just our King, he’s our—our guardian angel. Protecting us from ourselves.”

The video cut to an older man, sitting in a rocking chair.

“Do you pray to him?” the interviewer asked.

“Course I do. Doesn’t everybody?”

“What religious denomination are you?”

The man chuckled, eyes crinkling. “Lifelong atheist.”

“And you pray to the King?”

"He healed my wife. I saw him do it with my own two eyes. He walked through the cancer ward and said, _be healed_, and everybody was—_she_ was. Stage four lung cancer just _gone_. She opened her eyes and she looked at me,” his eyes teared up. "She kissed me and told me it was gone. She could feel it. _He_ did that. And I saw—I felt his power then, and I do now. It’s real, it’s everywhere. Can’t you feel it?”

“No. Maybe, I'm not sure."

"You will."

"What does it feel like?”

“Like peace. Like safety. Like we don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

The screen filled with static, in that spot, heavily watched and settled again on a woman in her seventies.

“I prayed to God every day," she said, "Every day. I went to church, I read the good book, and he never listened. Not once. But the King? He hears you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he answered me.” The woman raised her hand, flexed her weathered fingers. “He took away all my pain. Made the shaking stop.”

The video cut to other clips, other interviews from later dates, people of all ages, in all languages, all over the globe. Dean didn't have to understand them all to know what they were saying. Some of it was subtitled, some wasn't, but it was all the same. _He made it stop. He heard me. He saved me. He saved them. He loves us._

Dean’s head had filled slowly with a low-level hum, the kind of background buzz he usually got from near-concussions. All these people had been duped by the Devil, and they didn’t even know it. And if Lucifer was that convincing, to that many, then what chance did anyone have? No wonder everybody else had given up.

The tape went dark again for a moment before switching, this time to the very room Dean was in. And for a split second, Dean thought there was a camera pointing straight at him, because he was looking at his own face. Only it wasn't him. The Dean across from him was different, in a myriad of tiny ways: his eyes were tired, he had a beard and dust smudged crow's feet and his clothes looked dirty. Dean knew the mood, had felt it enough himself to know—he'd recorded this right after a hunt gone sideways.

_“For any fighters left out there,"_ Dean's future self said, _"If you can hear this. I’m done waiting. I’m going to the angels."_

"Oh fuck...me," Dean hissed under his breath. He'd said yes. This was his fault. This whole miserable thing.

_"I don’t have a choice. We have to stop this, and this is the only way,"_ his future self said. _"So if it gets out of hand, if I can’t stop him, or if I can't stop myself, you use this." _Future Dean held up a gun—at first Dean thought it was the Colt, but it wasn't, the barrel was longer and it was made of newer, gleaming steel. _"This—this gun Chuck found—is the only gun that still works. Which means the king has no power over it. Which means it’ll kill him too." _Future Dean looked down for a moment, steadying himself, and when he faced the camera again his eyes were steely. _"And if I can't stop him, then you have to stop me. I'm sorry—I'm sorry I didn't do this sooner."_ Future Dean reached forward and turned off the recording.

The screen went blank. And Dean sat there for a few long seconds, his thoughts freewheeling. Then he stood, scanned the room, found and opened the gun safe and took the gun. It was silver with black engravings along the hilt and it thrummed in his grip. Dean grabbed a holster and his jacket and headed downstairs.

Dean was quiet on his way down the stairs. He was planning on acting casual, and making up some excuse if anybody suspected he was up to something. But it was quiet. So quiet, it set Dean's teeth on edge. And then somebody screamed.

Without thinking, Dean bolted down the rest of the stairs and had the gun drawn before he’d even reached the living room. He got there in time to hear a second agonized moan. They were all fine: Rufus, Risa, Castiel and Chuck were all there, all in one piece, but in the center of the room were two others. A demon kneeling, black eyes furious as he howled out in pain once more, and above him Dean—the future version of him. He still had the beard, but had trimmed it, and had swapped his worn survivalist clothes for a grey button-down shirt and vest with matching slacks. He looked up at Dean’s approach and gave him a very un-Deanlike smile. “Well, this is interesting.” Cocking his head, he added. “What brings you here? And where’d you get that?” He nodded at the gun.

Dean cleared his throat, lowering the gun. “If you’re me, then you know where.” Realization hit him then. “But then...you’re not me, are you?”

“My name is Michael,” he said. “And you’re more than a little slow.” He crooked his finger and the gun flew from Dean's hand, clattering to the floor in the far corner of the room. Michael looked down at Brady, grabbed him by the hair and yanked back, a white-hot glow pulsing from his fingers. Brady writhed in pain, as much as he could, holding back a shout that finally tore out of him, pure agony.

“Torturing, huh?”

“Yes. That’s one thing you are very good at. I learned things from you I’d never even thought of. So I’m willing to forgive some of your shortcomings." He sent another pulse of light into Brady with a sneer. “Should’ve said yes to me sooner, Dean. Then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“I—I’m…” Brady’s attempt at words broke, another pained grunt overcoming.

Michael let go of Brady, crouched down next to him and leaned in close to his ear. “Oh sorry, did you have something to share with the class?”

Brady turned towards him and flashed bloody teeth. “Yes.” He coughed, blood-speckled spit hitting Michael on the cheek, who brushed it away, irritated.

“And what might that be?” Castiel asked.

“I’m not afraid of you pricks. I don’t care what you do to me.”

“Then you’re stupid, on top of everything else.” Michael clasped the back of Brady’s neck. “But then, I don’t know what I expected from a filthy bottom-feeder demon." His eyes started to glow as did Brady's insides. But this time Brady didn't scream, he started laughing.

"You think this is funny?" Michael growled. The glow faded from his eyes and he shoved Brady down hard, sending his chin smashing into the floor.

Brady pushed himself up onto his hands and sank back on his knees. "It's about to get hilarious."

"Oh shit," Risa said, looking out the window. "Shit, _shit_." She ran towards the front door.

"Block the windows!" Rufus said, grabbing the nearest bookshelf.

Castiel moved to help him.

"You think that'll help?" Chuck asked, as they started to shove the bookshelf forward, towards one of the windows.

Michael's face was steely, unreadable.

"He's _here_." Brady said, grinning wide.

"He can't be," Chuck said, swallowing. "How did he find us?"

"I was bait, you asshole," Brady said, laughing again.

Chuck crossed to where Michael was standing and poked him in the chest. "You brought him here."

And Michael staggered back, cowed by Chuck, confusing Dean even further.

Dean didn't have a clue what was happening, so he took a few steps closer to the other window. Something crashed through the glass, and Dean dodged the shower of shards that flew in, followed by a giant, writhing vine. The door blew open seconds later, and Risa let out a shout, running back into the room, just out of reach of an even larger vine, that headed straight for her and then curved abruptly up, plastering itself to the ceiling where an offshoot sprouted, and another and another, winding their way rapidly around the room.

Rufus, Risa and Castiel moved in closer to Dean, back to back, all of them watching in powerless horror until the vines stopped spreading and settled, finger-sized thorns biting into the walls and wooden floor.

And then Sam appeared in the center of the room. He was dressed simply, grey t-shirt and jeans, and could've looked like he'd come straight from a hunt, Dean thought. Except for how he carried himself: head held high, shoulders back with white-blue fire shining from his eyes. Dean's relief at seeing his brother alive was distinctly muted. Because this couldn't be him. It was Lucifer, it had to be.

Brady, still on his knees, bowed even lower, touching his forehead to the floor.

Sam, eyes fading back to normal, took a step towards Brady and everyone else in the room, except for Chuck, fell to their knees, including Dean, who didn't quite understand how he'd gotten there. His body had just responded, knees giving out, and now he was locked into place on the floor.

Chuck though. Chuck was still standing. And Michael, though he was kneeling like the rest of them, was clearly trying to fight it. For Dean, that wasn't even an option. It was like his body had stopped listening to him. He could still move his upper body and head—sort of— and he was pretty sure he could talk, but his legs weren't moving.

"My king," Brady said, looking worshipfully up at Sam. 

Sam leaned down, took Brady's bruised chin in his hand and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Brady let out a gasp, a full-body shudder ran through him and all of his wounds vanished, every bruise and gash Michael had made fading away until there was nothing left but a single drop of blood at the corner of his mouth. Sam wiped at it with his thumb and brought it to his lips.

_Gross_, Dean thought, and then more angrily, he snarled, "Lucifer?" Seeing as he was already locked to the floor, he knew things would probably go even further south real quickly if he drew attention to himself. But what the hell.

“Lucifer’s dead.” Sam tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t know? What did they tell you?” Sam looked at Castiel, then turned to Rufus and Risa staring at them steadily.

"Leave them out of this," Castiel said to Sam, "Please."

Sam's mouth quirked into a half-smile. "Well, since you asked nicely." He nodded his head at Risa and Rufus, who disappeared.

"Where'd they go?" Dean asked, heart thudding with alarm.

"Upstairs," Sam said. "Don't worry, they'll be safe there. You have my word." He turned his attention to Chuck.

"It was you," Castiel said, staring at Chuck along with Sam. "That's why he couldn't find us. All this time, it was..." his voice trailed off when Chuck turned to look at him and nodded, grimly.

Dean could feel his eyebrows knitting together. Everything was so confusing it was making him angrier. "Wait, what?"

"What he means, Dean," Sam said, slowly circling around Chuck, "is that Chuck here isn't just a prophet." He grabbed Chuck's shoulder, making him flinch. "You want to tell him, or should I?"

Chuck frowned, took a breath, exhaled slowly, and as he did his ratty bathrobe and pajama pants became a pristine white suit, his beard trimmed and neat, and his eyes glinted with something distinctly more than human. He gave Castiel a sad smile and said, "Hello, son."

"All this time," Castiel said again, voice breaking. "Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you ever answer me? You abandoned us."

"Castiel!" Michael snapped.

Chuck opened his mouth like he was going to say something and then thought better of it.

"Free will," Sam said, letting go of Chuck. "Right? Except not really. Because you sure fucked with us plenty."

"Wait, do you mean he's..." Dean scoffed. "This guy? Are you saying he's God?"

"He used to be," Brady said.

"Nobody asked you," Michael said.

Brady pushed himself to standing and looked down at Michael. "True. But nobody asked you either."

"I am the right hand of _God_." Michael thrust out his arm, and the gun, lying forgotten in the corner, flew into his grip. He brought it up and around in one smooth motion, aimed it at Sam and froze, finger hovering over the trigger like he was struggling to move it that last half inch.

Sam narrowed his eyes, entirely focused on Michael.

Dean could feel Sam's psychic hold on him waver and broke free, leaping forward to shove Sam out of the way just as the shot fired. The bullet struck Dean in the back; his hands collided with Sam's chest. Dean collapsed against him, knees buckling as the pain from the bullet spread through his body, but Sam caught him, held him upright, lowering him gently to the floor until Dean was slumped against him, head resting on Sam's shoulder.

Michael sucked in a ragged gasp, and Dean turned his head as best he could, just enough to catch a glimpse of Michael huddled in on himself, collapsed on his side. Blood was oozing from Michael's back; from the very same spot where Dean had been struck.

"Thank you, Dean," Sam said as he brought his hand over Dean's wound. A warm pulse of heat spread out from where Sam touched him, chasing away the pain with a pleasant numbing glow. There was another feeling, a strong tugging sensation buried beneath the soothing press of Sam's power; something tore loose from Dean's spine: the bullet—a small blood coated cylinder of light that floated into view, hovering by Dean's face until Sam plucked it from the air.Dean sat back on his heels, body healed but weak, as Sam stood.

"That gun is one of the only things that could've killed me," Sam said, smiling beatifically. He nodded towards where the gun lay on the floor, inches away from Michael's twitching hand; a slim tendril of vine wrapped itself around the hilt and pulled it away, retracting up against the wall.

Michael's body twitched and he forced himself onto his hands and knees. There were cracks in his skin, light oozing out between them, widening crevices opening all over future-Dean's flesh.

"Is he—is future-me gonna explode?" Dean asked.

"Michael pulled the trigger," Sam said, "not you."

Looking from Dean to Sam with pure venom, Michael pushed himself to his feet and said again, "I am...the right hand...of God."

"You were," Brady said, again, smugly. "Now, I am."

"Shut your blasphemous mouth," Michael snarled, light dripping from his lips like blood, "Or I'll shut it for you."

"Oh, will you?" Brady snorted. " You know, I have to admit, I love your confidence. So cocky, even in your last few seconds. But then, I don’t know what I expected from a pissant angel."

"Archangel," Michael said, fury in his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and a gleaming blade slid out of his sleeve, dropping into his hand. He could barely move his arms, but was clearly trying, his whole body tensed with the effort. Dean wondered how much effort it was taking Sam to hold the angel back.

_"That's not me holding him back, it's you," _Sam whispered into Dean's mind. "_You're still fighting him, even now."_

Michael clutched his sword, raising it one painful inch at a time.

"Michael, don't," Chuck said.

"I have to, father," Michael said, voice straining with the effort.

"You're not doing shit," Brady said. "Don't you get it? It's over. You lost." He threw a low kick at Michael's hand, knocking the blade from his grip.

"Take your reward, Brady," Sam said, nodding down at the archangel sword.

Brady's jaw dropped. "Really?"

"Yes," Sam said, with a soft smile. "You earned it." He held up the shining, blood covered bullet and crushed it between his thumb and forefingers, the light flattening and stretching like putty between his fingers. Then he clasped Brady's hand, plastering the light onto his palm.

Brady let go of Sam and turned towards Michael, blood-thirsty and eager, flexing his light-covered hand, picked up the angel blade and stalked over to Michael, moving behind him. He gripped at something Dean couldn't see, just behind Michael's head and brought the blade down in an arc. Michael cried out, back arching as his wings flickered into existence the light draining from his body and into them until his wings were made of holy fire, sparking with lightning as Brady cut them off, one after the other.

The wings dropped down with a heavy, solid weight—light and fire condensed into golden feathers and bone, and Michael collapsed, head slamming against the floorboards.

"Michael," Chuck said sadly.

Dean looked at Michael, at his own face, worn and pale, eyes staring straight back at him like an accusation. Blood spilled from future-Dean's mouth and he coughed wet and pained. "Sorry," he said, voice barely a whisper, and then fell still.

Sam crouched down next to the corpse, and closed its eyes with incongruent gentleness. “It’s okay, Dean. It’s all gonna be okay.”

Michael's wings started to dissolve, turning into glittering dust. Sam held out his hand, cupped it, palm up, and the dust swirled into it, hovering over his palm like a miniature tornado. Then he stood, as Brady came to stand beside him and brought the funnel of power to Brady's mouth.

Brady nuzzled at Sam's hand until the last of it was gone, and when he opened his eyes again, they glowed with holy light. He rolled his shoulders back and the shadow of two massive wings appeared on the wall behind him, shimmering over the vines.

"Why didn't you help Michael?" Castiel asked, voice raspy, staring up at Chuck. "I don't understand how you can just let all this happen."

"That's a good question, Chuck," Sam said. "Here's another one: You brought Dean here, right? Pulled him through time to see all this."

Chuck didn't say anything, but his answer was clear.

"How was that supposed to work, exactly," Sam continued, "when you don’t even have the power left to send him back?”

"I didn't think it would take that much out of me," Chuck said.

"Aw. Stuff's a little harder these days, huh?" Brady taunted. "Since everybody realized you're a fraud."

"Since you poisoned them," Chuck said angrily, "turned them all against me."

"No, you did that yourself," Sam said. "Tell me, how many still pray to you?"

Chuck swallowed.

"I know there's somebody," Sam said. "And so do you."

"I used to," Castiel said. "But I stopped after—"

"After Australia," Chuck finished. "I remember."

"Why?" Castiel asked Chuck. "Just tell me why? Why didn't you help us? Why did you make us kill all those people, all those other angels?" His voice was shaking, full of fury, "Why did we wage war after war in your name? Because you commanded it?"

"Because he's a hack writer," Dean said. "That part's not an act."

"Got it in one, Dean," Sam said. "Everything that happened to the world, and to us, too: Mom, Dad, Azazel, us as vessels, your time in Hell. All of that happened to amuse him." Sam gave Chuck a pointed look. "I'm still waiting for an answer. How many people still pray to you?"

"One," Chuck said. "One _person_ still prays to me."

"That's right. I never stopped,” Sam said quietly, “I kept hoping you'd answer one day. Wondering if you'd try to stop me, and what it would take to get your attention."

Chuck scoffed. "That's not why you did all this."

"You're right, it's not." Sam looked over at Dean. "I did all this to change things."

Chuck dropped to his knees. "Go ahead then. I can't stop you. Not anymore."

Brady offered Sam the angel blade, but Sam held up his hand, shooing him away. He walked behind Chuck, put his hand on Chuck’s head, fingertips curling over his forehead.

"They’ll stop believing in you too, someday," Chuck said, closing his eyes as Sam’s hand began to glow.

"Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I’ll treat them better."

"Sure you will."

Sam twisted his hand sharply, Chuck's neck snapped, and his body lit up with holy light as he collapsed face-first onto the floor. A perfect burning circle appeared around him on the floor and then went dark. The vines came to life again, wrapping themselves around Chuck's corpse until it was encased in green.

The room was completely silent for a minute, as reality rippled and heaved, realigning itself, breathing as Sam breathed, in and out, in and out, with his eyes closed. When he opened them again, the vines in the house vanished, like they'd never been there and the sun shone in bright from outside, filtered green by the trees and grass bordering the house.

Dean stood and looked at his brother, now dressed head to toe in white, as Chuck had been, as God had been, wondering only, _What now? What the fuck do we do now?_

Sam smiled—genuinely, magnanimously, like he didn't feel even a flicker of remorse at what he'd done. Light shimmered over him, a halo of white and silver that solidified into the shape of a crown, settling on his head. "Whatever we want. But first, you need to go back."

"I don't understand," Dean said. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Help me," Sam said. "Nobody has to die. We can cut off Chuck's story early, stop Michael and Lucifer before they ever get started. I can save everybody, Dean. But I can't do it alone."

Dean didn't know how to answer that. What could he possibly say? His brother had just killed capital G God and taken His place and Dean was supposed to help him get there faster?

“See you soon, Dean.” Sam’s smile, maddeningly serene, his absolute certainty, made Dean’s stomach turn. But still, when Sam reached for him, when he pushed his thumb against Dean’s forehead, Dean didn't shy away, didn't even flinch, he closed his eyes, and leaned into his touch as he was pulled away, back through time.

The moment Dean finds his phone, he calls Sam and leaves a voicemail asking to see him.

"I shouldn’t have pushed you away, and I’m sorry, okay? I trust you. I trust you to do the right thing, you always have. You’re the one with the conscience, man. You always were. Please, just come meet me tomorrow. We can do this together." He pauses, chooses his next words carefully. "But I can't do it alone. And neither can you."

He leaves coordinates and tells Sam to meet him there at sunrise.

Dean breathes in deep, letting the crisp air chill his lungs, puffs out little Os into the cold air. He said sunrise, thinks they could get breakfast together after. Because nothing says _I’m sorry_ like pancakes. And he is sorry, sorry that he pushed Sam away, sorry that Sam went way overboard (understatement) trying to fix things.

It occurs to him that he's not even sure which Sam will come to meet him. He hopes it's his Sam.

He hears a car, and straightens then tries to relax again, better not to let Sam know how important this is, but it’s a false alarm, a Jeep drives past on the nearby highway.

So Dean settles back against the hood, checks his watch for the fourth time in ten minutes. It’s an hour after sunrise now.

“Come on, Sammy,” he mutters under his breath, the roiling dread in his gut makes his voice sound paper thin and unsteady.

Another ten minutes pass, and another. A turkey vulture circles overhead, the shadow of its wings huge and dark on the cracked, bone-dry ground.

Dean falls to his knees, and he prays.

** _No, _ ** _Sam thinks._** _No, that's not right. _****_I have a better idea._**

Dean was quiet on his way down the stairs. He was planning on acting casual, and making up some excuse if anybody suspected he was up to something. But it was quiet. So quiet, it set Dean's teeth on edge.

The make-shift living room at the bottom of the stairs was empty. Or that's what Dean thought at first. But no, Castiel and Risa were both there, they'd just fallen asleep: Risa on the armchair, Castiel on the floor, laying near the empty couch. Only, as Dean got closer, he realized the couch wasn't exactly empty. Chuck was gone, but there was something wriggling under the blanket.

Swallowing down his nerves, Dean headed for the couch and yanked the blanket off. A thick vine had grown through the couch cushion, thorny and still growing, it was wrapping itself around the couch in coils, like a constrictor, boring in and out of the cheap polyester filling.

"Shit," Dean said under his breath, and backed away, feet bumping into another growth of vines that had spread across the floor—they were racing towards the door.

Dean sprinted, leaping over them and slammed his way through the door just before it was blocked off completely.

Rufus had fallen asleep on the front porch and didn't so much as twitch when Dean barreled out past him.

He ran to the Impala, found the keys in the ignition, gave her a quick, appreciative pat and turned the key. Her engine turned and sputtered. "Come on, baby, don't be like that." Dean's eyes flicked to the fuel tank, which was well below the E.A flare of pointless panic ran through him. Not only couldn't he start his car, but even if he could, where was he going? He didn't have a clue where to find Lucifer, and even if he did, so many of the roads were destroyed. He'd barely made it with the Jeep, and—

"Don't worry," said a voice from the passenger seat, making him flinch so hard he nearly banged his head against the roof. The preacher—Brady—was sitting next to him, eyes solid black. He gave Dean a gleaming smile. "Where we're going, we don't need roads." He reached out two fingers and touched Dean's forehead.

The world blinked out of existence and came back again outside, dropping Dean flat on his ass. The Impala was gone, and he'd landed in a garden of some sort.

Dean pushed himself to standing, trying to get his bearings. He'd landed on a soft patch of grass, covered in tiny flowers: yellow, white and red. The garden was surrounded by pine trees, tall and too dense to see past. A deer was watching him, but darted away when Dean made eye contact with it.

To his right was a fountain with a statue in its center. Aged marble or something like that, of a small, bearded man. He looked like he was in agony: head thrown back, mouth open in a soundless scream. Water dribbled from his palms, water so intensely blue it looked like it had been dyed. Dean got nearer and couldn’t ignore how familiar the face looked, looking at the details of the man's face, squinting until it clicked. _"Chuck?"_

"Thou shalt have no other gods before Him," Brady said, from behind Dean.

Dean turned around, already sick of this demon. "You want something?"

"I want what He wants. And He wants to see you." Brady nodded past the fountain, where the pine trees were parting, sliding aside to make a path. "Don't keep him waiting."

Before Dean had a chance to answer, Brady had vanished. "Fine. Why not?" Dean muttered, heading towards the path. He'd gone no more than ten feet before he heard the trees rustling behind him. Peering over his shoulder he saw the trees closing off behind him again. "Awesome. Real subtle."

He followed the path downhill, checking discreetly to see if he still had the gun, and finding to his shock and relief that he did. The path opened up onto another clearing: another garden, but far different—like an inversion of the one he'd been dropped in. The ground was dark brown earth, empty of green, and where the fountain had been in the other garden, there stood a man in a white suit, his back turned to Dean, pristine and perfect, like a centerpiece. Dean recognized him instantly, knew the slope of that back, and the hair, knew the hitch of his broad shoulders. “Sam?”

But Sam didn’t hear him, or ignored him. And only when Dean got closer did he see the other man—his future self, on the ground, neck trapped beneath Sam’s heel. With a shift of Sam’s foot, future Dean’s neck snapped, and his eyes lit up with holy light. A burst of shadow and fire poured across the ground where he lay, singeing the ground below in the shape of massive black wings.

Sam took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling and then turned to look at him. “Hey, Dean.”

Speechless, Dean stayed where he stood, rooted to the spot as the thing wearing his brother walked towards him. Sam looked unnaturally clean, like the rich earth of the garden knew better than to soil his gleaming white shoes; he held himself differently, standing taller, and seemed to tower over Dean, who couldn’t keep his eyes from darting towards his own corpse, and the flowers that had begun blossoming around it.

Where Sam stepped, flowers, grass and vines followed, each footprint turning lush and green in his wake.

“You’ve come a long way to see this,” Sam said, smiling—it was nothing like the blissed-out smile of the worshippers, or the miserable smile Cas had plastered on. Sam looked genuinely happy, something Dean hadn’t seen on his brother’s face in so long he desperately wanted it to be real. Except for the part where he’d just watched him kill a future version of himself. Except for the part where this couldn’t be Sam. It was Lucifer. It had to be.

“Sammy, you can fight him.”

Sam’s smile shifted into something more like pity. “Dean, it’s me.”

“No, you’re—you’re Lucifer—“

“Lucifer’s dead.” Sam tilted his head, narrowing his eyes, “You don’t know? What did they tell you?”

“Fine, so you’re a demon then—“

“I’m not.”

“—the kind that can dope up half the world and make them think everything’s hunky dory.”

“You don’t like it?” Sam asked, and he sounded disappointed, but not surprised. “People are happy.”

“The ones that are left, maybe. The population’s gone pretty drastically down the toilet, you know, or was that part of the plan too?”

“Not my plan," Sam said, and now he sounded angry. "Lucifer and Michael didn’t care much about collateral damage.”

“And you? You’re this strong, you didn’t try to stop them?”

“I did.” Sam swallowed, and looked over his shoulder, at Dean’s corpse. “They’re not easy to stop. Or at least, they didn’t used to be. Until I cut them off at the source.” He looked back at Dean, eyes glassy. “I’m sorry, but you need to understand—“

“Understand what?”

“That this had to _stop_. Hell, Heaven, the endless battle. It’s all so meaningless.” On Sam’s head, Dean could see the outline of a crown, becoming more and more solid, the longer he looked at it. It was white and gleaming, inlaid with gems—no, not gems—rings mounted on it, green and gold and black and pearlescent white. Sam smiled again, softly, and Dean had to force his eyes shut against the flood of gentle warmth coming from him, lulling him into complacency.

“And people's souls? Those meaningless too?” Dean asked, focusing on his own corpse again. It helped. Exhibit A of Sam’s brave new world. "The people that explode when they get murdery? That's you too, right?"

Sam nodded. “Their souls are safe.”

“Safe? Where? In Hell?”

“Hell’s not my only kingdom, Dean,” Sam said, serene again, maddeningly calm.

“Holy crap,” Dean said, the realization forming a fraction of a second before his words, “They’re—they’re inside of you. The souls, they’re in _you_." Dean felt like he was going to be sick. "Are you—is that where you get your power from?”

“I’m keeping them safe,” Sam said. “And in exchange, they give me their gratitude. Their worship. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Above them the sun was shining, bright and warm, casting Sam in a halo. The outline of his crown radiated through, brighter still.

“Sam, you’re better than this.”

“You’ll understand. I know you will. Now that you know what I’m offering, the kind of world I can make.” Sam raised his hands slowly and the garden around them blossomed obscenely, cherry and apple trees bursting into life in a circle of white and red and yellow, blooming and fruiting in seconds.

“It’s not real!” Dean snapped. “This isn’t life, this is—it’s some kind of cracked out utopia. Life is about choice, and you took that away. You gonna take mine away too? You got everybody else on their knees already! Why not just make me into one of your groupies, too, huh? Give me a hemp shirt and some beads and teach me the good word of _Sam_.”

“If that’s what you want,” Sam said, gently.

Dean found himself staring at Sam, moving towards him, drawn in by a current pulling him inevitably closer. The part of his brain that wasn’t terrified and angry wanted nothing more than to throw himself on his knees in supplication. It wasn’t just peace Sam was offering, it was _bliss_; Dean could feel the promise of it heavy in the air, like the world itself was drenched with Sam’s will. Dean kept his eyes open, kept clinging to his rage—the only boat in an endless, tranquil ocean that stretched to every horizon. But even if he climbed in, even if he fought against the enormity of Sam’s awful perfection, how could he get out?

And Sam kept looking back at him, his natural hazel shifting from forest green to sunflower yellow to sky blue to a blinding solar white. That light held everything, all Sam’s promises, his Kingdom in its full glory and Dean could see it now, could see the Gates, gleaming bright and wide open and all he had to do was surrender and walk through. He wouldn’t suffer anymore, no more pain, no more doubt. Just peace, happiness, forever and ever.

But Dean fought. He clenched his fists, fingernails pushing crescents into his palms, arms trembling with the effort as he held on and ground out a strained, _"No."_ He didn’t want peace, not if this was the cost.

Sam’s smile faltered and he dropped his arms to his sides, letting out an irritated huff—the familiar kind Dean had heard for years, most often back when Sam was a teen and Dad was being Dad. “It’s not enough though, is it?” Sam took a step forward and another, vines flanking him, like twin serpents, coiled and ready to strike. “It’s never going to be good enough.” He stopped inches away from Dean and narrowed his eyes. “There’s no fixing this. No fixing us. You still don’t trust me.”

“That’s what this is about?” Dean laughed, ugly and hysterical. “This is supposed to make me trust you?”

“Or at least believe in me,” Sam said, raising his chin. “I can save _everybody_, Dean. Nobody has to die. If you just stay out of it, if you don’t say yes to Michael. If you help _me_, instead of them, my world comes sooner.” He sounded so sincere, so sure of himself, of the inherent goodness of his insane plan.

Dean found his anger withering away, replaced just as quickly by sorrow. “I can’t let you do this, Sam.”

“But you will.” Sam cocked his head. "Or are you going to shoot me?"

Dean had forgotten all about his secret weapon. He reached for it, fingers brushing against the cool metal. He could stop this—all of it—but only if he could get himself to shoot Sam. It was the right choice, too; even Sam, if he was still in his right mind, would agree with him. What Sam had made the world into wasn’t real. It was a half-life at best, people made happy by force not choice. Dean’s brother, Sam, would know how wrong this was. Dean wrapped his fingers around the grip of the gun feeling the promise of its cool metal, but let his hand drop again, tears welling up.

"Didn't think so," Sam said sweetly, "You won't stop me. You never could.”

“Sam…” Dean tried, but his words faltered.

“See you soon, Dean.” Sam’s smile had barely a hint of sorrow, and even that was tainted with an arrogant pity that made Dean’s stomach turn. But still, when Sam reached for him, when he pushed his thumb against Dean’s forehead, Dean didn't shy away, didn't even flinch, he closed his eyes, leaned into the touch and pleaded, _I’m sorry Sam, I’m so sorry._

The world melted away again, and this time Dean welcomed it, letting it wash over him. When he opened his eyes to a heavily stained motel carpet and the sound of people arguing loudly on the street lot outside, he breathed a slow sigh of temporary, muted relief. He was back home. And he had work to do.

The moment Dean finds his phone, he calls Sam and leaves a voicemail asking to see him.

"I shouldn’t have pushed you away, and I’m sorry, okay? I trust you. I trust you to do the right thing, you always have. You’re the one with the conscience, man. You always were." He runs his fingers through his hair, struggling to find the right words. "But more than that—we keep each other human." He pauses, chooses his next words carefully. "Please, let's fix this together."

He leaves coordinates and tells Sam to meet him there at sunrise.

Dean breathes in deep, letting the crisp air chill his lungs, puffs out little Os into the cold air. He said sunrise, thinks they could get breakfast together after. Because nothing says _I’m sorry_ like pancakes.

He hears a car, and straightens then tries to relax again, better not to let Sam know how important this is, but it’s a false alarm, a Jeep drives by on the nearby highway. With every passing minute, his memory of what happened in the future fades a little more, but he remembers the most crucial part. He remembers what he has to do.

So Dean settles back against the hood, checks his watch for the fourth time in ten minutes. It’s an hour after sunrise now.

“Come on, Sammy,” he mutters under his breath, the roiling dread in his gut makes his voice sound paper-thin and unsteady.

Another ten minutes pass, and another. The sky above is a startling shade of blue and free of clouds.

Dean falls to his knees, and he prays. A single sliver of green pierces through the dark, rich earth, sprouting upwards and blooming into a small yellow flower.

** _No. That's still not right..._** ** _I've got it. I know how to fix everything._ **

Dean was quiet on his way down the stairs. He was planning on acting casual, and making up some excuse if anybody suspected he was up to something. But it was quiet. So quiet, it set Dean's teeth on edge.

The make-shift living room at the bottom of the stairs was empty. Or that's what Dean thought at first. But no, Castiel and Risa were both there, they'd just fallen asleep: Risa on the armchair, Castiel on the floor, laying near the empty couch. Only, as Dean got closer, he realized the couch wasn't exactly empty. Chuck was gone, but there was something wriggling under the blanket. Worse, was the intense feeling of deja vu that flooded through Dean and then faded just as quickly.

Swallowing down his nerves, Dean headed for the couch and yanked the blanket off. A thick vine had grown through the couch cushion, thorny and still growing, it was wrapping itself around the couch in coils, like a constrictor, boring in and out of the cheap polyester filling.

"Shit," Dean said under his breath, and backed away, feet bumping into another growth of vines that had spread across the floor—they were racing towards the door.

Dean sprinted, leaping over them and slammed his way outside just before the door was blocked off completely. One of the thorns pierced his jacket, cutting into the flesh of his shoulder and he thought he heard a human sounding gasp as the thorn retracted, like a fang.

Rufus had fallen asleep on the front porch and didn't so much as twitch when Dean barreled out past him.

He ran to the Impala, scaring off a fox that had been sleeping on her hood. Dean threw open the door, found the keys in the ignition, gave her a quick, appreciative pat and turned the key. Her engine turned and sputtered. "Come on, baby, don't be like that." Dean's eyes flicked to the fuel tank, which was well below the E.A flare of pointless panic ran through him. Not only couldn't he start his car, but even if he could, where was he going? He didn't have a clue where to find Lucifer, and even if he did, so many of the roads were destroyed. He'd barely made it with the Jeep, and—

"Don't worry," said a voice from the passenger seat, making him flinch so hard he nearly banged his head against the roof. The preacher—Brady—was sitting next to him, eyes solid black. He gave Dean a gleaming smile. "Where we're going—"

"—we don't need roads," Dean finished. It wasn't just that he'd recognized the quote. He'd known what Brady was going to say.

Brady winked at him, reached out two fingers and touched Dean's forehead.

The world blinked out of existence and came back again outside, dropping Dean flat on his ass. The Impala was gone, and he'd landed somewhere in a mountain valley. He vaguely recognized the peaks, he’d been here before, probably driven through on a job, but something about the ridges was familiar. “Wyoming,” he said, as it clicked. It was stunning, all things considered, a cloudless blue sky, rich green grass and trees covering the slopes as far as the eye could see except for the very peaks which gleamed pale in the mid-afternoon sun.

He pushed himself to standing and scanned his surroundings: there was a log cabin close by, the only building anywhere within walking distance. Brady had brought him here for a reason, presumably, so it was likely whatever he was meant to see was in that cabin.

A soft rustling caught Dean’s ear and he just barely kept his foot from crushing a small yellow python. It raised up, scenting the air with its tongue, and slithered away, towards taller grass.

As Dean got nearer, he saw that it wasn’t just a cabin. It was a church. It looked old, but it bore the same telltale markings of the King the church in Kansas City had—the cross had been replaced with his crown, and thorned vines ran along its sides, curling in through the oversized windows. The doors opened at Dean’s approach, and he stepped inside, taken aback by the stunning view directly across from him. The mountain vista was fully visible through the back wall, more window than wall, really, and in the middle of the church was a plain altar, little more than a wooden table.

“He likes it here,” Brady said, from Dean’s left.

Dean hadn’t even noticed him there at first, but the demon was doing something with the vines, pruning them maybe or, no—he was gathering something spilling out of them. Dean took a step closer and then recoiled, instantly. There was blood spilling from the vines, and Brady was holding up a funnel, filling what looked like wine bottles. Based on the filled rack behind him, and the speed at which the liquid poured out, he’d been at it for a while.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“I don’t know, what do you think it is?” Brady asked him, still focused on the task at hand.

“Blood.”

“Can’t get anything past you.”

“Is it—is that for Sam?”

“Everything’s for Him,” Brady said, impatiently, like Dean was being purposefully obtuse.

“Uh huh. So, last time Sam was drinking blood, it was demon blood.”

Brady huffed. “Demons don’t possess vines last time I checked. And Sam’s moved on to stuff that’s a little higher proof.”

“Sam. Not Lucifer?”

Brady laughed sharply. “Lucifer? Please. Sam took him out years ago.”

“And he’s still drinking blood?”

“He could get it another way, if he wanted,” Brady said, corking the bottle, as he telekinetically slid a bowl under the funnel. The flow from the vine had slowed considerably. “Guess He likes the taste.”

“Get what another way?” Everything about this was putting Dean on edge. The church, the bleeding friggin plant, the mountains, and where the hell was Sam, anyway?

Brady ignored him, watching the bowl, carefully tilting the funnel to catch the last few drops.

“Hey! I asked you a question,” Dean snapped, losing patience. He pulled the gun and aimed it at Brady.

Brady stood and faced Dean, black eyes shining like a mirror. “Go ahead. See what happens.”

Dean's back seized, a sharp pain flickering in and out of existence. He paused, considered the way Peter had exploded and decided, no, he’d rather see this through. He lowered the gun, and stuck it back in his holster.

“I don’t have to explain shit to you,” Brady said, smugly. “He said to bring you here, so I did.”

“So you’re Sam’s bitch?”

Brady sneered. “I’m His right hand.”

“Sure you are.”

“I serve Him, I have done _everything_ for Him,” Brady said.

“Yeah, sounds like you're his bitch.” Dean smirked. He had a good feeling Brady also wasn’t allowed to hurt him, otherwise he would’ve already.

“He needs me,” Brady said. “I spread His word, I’ve converted every church, temple, mosque, every house of worship on this planet.” The black faded from his eyes, leaving them pale blue. “He’ll reward me. Give me another upgrade. He promised He would.”

“Yeah? When?”

“When He’s won,” Brady said.

Dean was about to ask what exactly there was left to win, but a blast of light from the mountains caught his eye. Brady’s eyes flipped black again and he rushed to the window, Dean following, temporarily blinded by the brightness.

“It’s time,” Brady said, “He wants you to see.” There was a _why not me_ buried in those words, that Dean chose to ignore.

The church peeled open, its logs sliding apart until Dean could step right through. The mountains were on fire, unnaturally bright flames shooting up into the sky and they were moving—not just the flames, the mountains themselves were alive, and looked for a fraction of a second like two giants wrestling.

Dean headed towards the light, shielding himself with his hands until it began to dim and he could start to make out shapes. The mountains had settled again, but the peaks were all different: large chunks missing like they’d been dug out by claws. There was somebody ahead of him standing in the grass, shining with that same painfully bright light that faded as he got closer. Dean recognized him instantly, knew the slope of that back, the T-shirt and jeans, the hair, just as he knew the hitch of his broad shoulders. “Sam?”

But Sam ignored him, focused on something on the ground. Someone, Dean realized as he got near.

There was a man lying on the grass, his neck trapped beneath Sam’s bare foot.

“Chuck?” Dean asked when he saw the man’s face. It was undoubtedly him, or at least it looked exactly like him, only he’d swapped out his ratty robe for a white suit, and his beard and hair had been trimmed. He looked up at Dean and the mountains shuddered, writhing in death throes.

With a shift of Sam’s ankle, Chuck’s neck snapped, and his eyes lit up with holy light. A burst of shadow and fire poured across the ground where he lay, singeing the ground below in a perfect circle.

Sam took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling and then turned around. “Hey, Dean.”

“Sam?” Dean asked. “That really you?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, smiling. “It’s me.” And that was Sam’s smile. He looked a little tired, but relieved, like he used to after a successful hunt.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Dean asked. “Maybe start by telling me why you just killed Chuck?”

Sam’s smile faded, but only for a second. “I killed him because there’s only room for one creator.”

“Come again?”

“I did all this,” Sam gestured wide, “all of it, so I could fix things.”

“Fix what? The world?” Dean’s anger came back, never smart enough to stay quiet, even in the face of an apparently all-powerful brother currently being ridden by a very real god complex. “Because I gotta tell you, it doesn’t look fixed to me.”

“I know,” Sam said nodding. “I was too late. But that doesn’t matter anymore.” He stepped close to Dean. “Or it won’t, in a minute.”

“Sammy, I don’t—“

“I’m sorry. This is going to hurt,” Sam said. “The universe has to be undone to be remade.”

“Sam?” Dean asked, just before a shockwave of pain tore through him. It was so overwhelming he couldn’t make a sound, could barely process it all. Every nerve in his body was on fire, his skin was coming apart, flesh pushing against its confines, his bones shattering, every one of them being ground to powder. Gleaming metal floated into view—the gun, the weapon he should’ve used but hadn’t, and then it too disintegrated, a ripple of energy separating its atoms into glimmering dust.

“But I promise, you won’t remember any of it.” As Sam took another step closer, the mountain range behind him began to break apart, chunks of rock drifting into the air, oversized, upside-down snow. The grass underfoot followed, chunks falling up, like gravity had been turned off. “It’ll be okay,” Sam said softly, and a tear slipped down his cheek. “I’m going to fix everything.”

Dean wanted to protest, but couldn’t. He no longer had a mouth, or much of anything, his body was coming apart, molecules floating away from each other, the cells of his hand swirling up into the mountain air.

“Have faith, Dean,” Sam said, the only solid thing left in existence.

Dean shovels the last three mouthfuls of Lucky Charms into his mouth, and then starts to drink the sugary milk just as the TV blares “Scooby dooby doo, where are you…”

“Dean!” Mom calls from the kitchen.

Carefully, Dean picks up the bowl and stands, carrying it out of the living room, and to the kitchen counter without spilling a drop.

Mom grins at him, tousling his hair. She takes the bowl and sets it in the sink. “Come on, Dad’s waiting.”

Dean follows her out the back door, into their backyard.

Dad is in the garden, pulling weeds under the bright mid-morning sun. He grins at Dean when he comes close. “Look, son. Look at this.”

Dean goes to the spot where Dad is kneeling with his hand on the trunk of their apple tree.

“You remember when this showed up?”

“‘Yeah, last year on my fifth birthday,” Dean says. “You said it was a birthday gift.”

“That’s right.”

“My sixth birthday’s tomorrow!” Dean says, getting excited.

“Sure is, kiddo.” Dad reaches for Mom’s hand as she kneels down by his side. “You gonna wish for something good?

“Uh huh,” Dean drops to his knees onto the soft, cool earth, and closes his eyes, but he can’t think of a single thing he wants. He’s happy and Mom and Dad love him, and he can’t imagine anything better than what he has. All he can do is give thanks. So he reaches for his necklace, runs his thumbs over the crown-shaped amulet, and starts to pray, “Savior, almighty majesty…”

** _Today, tomorrow and forever._**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the art masterpost please see chapter 2 [ or here on tumblr](https://slytherkins.tumblr.com/post/190584530353/art-for-the-sam-winchester-big-bang-2019-20-read) and leave slytherkins some love!
> 
> I hid several easter eggs in this, mainly to amuse myself. If you tell me which ones you caught- related to dates or the King's prayer, tell me in the comments and you'll get extra cool points ; )
> 
> If you're interested in reading the original meta that gave me the idea for this fic [ here's the LJ post from over a decade ago](https://monicawoe.livejournal.com/9798.html)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This bang was a blast. I totally lucked out with my partner. The fic was so visually stimulating, if I'd had another month and enough spoons, I'd have illustrated at least three more scenes.

**Author's Note:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](https://monicawoe.tumblr.com/post/190586895423/on-his-head-a-crown-slytherkins-monicawoe), if you feel so inclined!


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